


One of Seven

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Missing Hogwarts Moments [26]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Gen, POV Hermione Granger, Seven Potters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 09:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20637011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: Hermione has agreed to polyjuice into her best friend and escort him from Privet Drive. She knows it could be dangerous, but she's unprepared to face He Who Must Not Be Named for the first time...





	One of Seven

She screwed her eyes tightly shut, but she could still hear the steady whooshing beat of the Thestral’s wings, could still feel the cool wind streaming against her face, the lurching rock of the animal. She faintly felt embarrassed at how tightly her trembling arms were wrapped around Kingsley’s waist, but she was too preoccupied by the fact that whenever she did peak a glance she could not see her own body or the animal beneath her, simply nothing but a long, long drop down to street lights and dark gardens. 

‘Begin descent!’ she heard a faint cry. 

‘All right, Hermione?’ she heard Kingsley say, his voice low and reassuring. 

‘Yes,’ she squeaked. 

‘Nearly there,’ he said, and with a sudden heave their angle was changed, and she could feel them zooming down to earth. She closed her eyes again, until there was an abrupt thump and then a slight bounce as the Thestral trotted to a halt. 

They had landed in a perfectly rectangular, neat garden. Even in the darkness, she could see the spotlessly flat lawn, the grass extremely short but thick, and the smart, neat bushes against the wooden fence. She could sense movement around her, and one by one they removed their disillusionment charms - she did the same, and looked around frantically until she saw Ron’s tall, lean frame appear.

There was a bang from the house - the back door had burst open and Harry was hurtling towards them. ‘Harry!’ She flung her arms around him; all the fretting and worrying since they had said goodbye to him at the train station briefly gone. Ron hurried over too, clapping Harry on the back and shaking his shoulder as he grinned broadly. It had not been long, really, since the three of them had been together, but it had been long enough for Hermione to feel a great swoop of relief as they hugged him. 

‘All righ’, Harry? Ready fer the off?’

‘Definitely,’ said Harry, grinning back. ‘But I wasn’t expecting this many of you!’

‘Change of plan,’ muttered Mad-Eye, stomping past. He called for them to get inside the house, and Harry led them to the back door. 

Hermione followed, glancing up at the bland, modern house, matching it to the stories. ‘Which window was it?’ she asked Ron quietly. 

‘Oh, it’s on the other side,’ said Ron, grinning down at her. ‘Can’t bring a car into the back garden, Hermione, I’m not rude - we hovered it over the driveway like you’re supposed to.’ 

She laughed as they stepped through into a gleaming, spotless kitchen. Her own parents were neat and tidy too, but their kitchen had still been homely - cookery books on the shelves, Mum’s pride and joy of an Aga stove gleaming, Dad’s orchids in the window, a cluster of her old school work and photos stuck to the fridge. 

But this kitchen was like walking onto a film set - bland and cold and sterile, just as Harry had always described. 

‘What’s that?’ Ron asked her immediately, nodding over at one of the counters.

She glanced over. ‘A blender,’ she said. The chairs had all been taken, so she hopped up to perch on the counter beside it, Ron leaning beside her and staring at it. He reached out a hand to one of the buttons. ‘I wouldn’t,’ she warned him with a smirk. 

He glanced at her, and grinned, then turned around and looked curiously around the kitchen. ‘I was really hoping for at least one embarrassing little kid photo to make fun of him with,’ he said, his eyes drifting over the many pictures of a chubby blond child they could see through the doorway to the hall. 

‘Not much chance of that, I think,’ she said, glancing over at Harry who was yelping over Remus and Tonks’s marriage. ‘You’ll just have to settle for laughing at him responding exactly how we know he will to this plan.’ 

‘Not fair,’ said Ron. ‘He’s seen that one of me in the bath.’ 

She snorted with giggles, but then Moody was barking at them all to stop chit-chatting and launched into explaining the plan to Harry. 

Hermione watched him closely, noting how Moody was skirting around the bit they all knew would bother him, Harry’s eyebrows slowly knitting together into a suspicious frown. Eventually Moody pulled out the flask of polyjuice potion - Harry’s eyebrows raised in outraged anger. ‘No!’ he said, firmly and loudly. ‘No way!’ 

Hermione loved being right. She bit back a smile. ‘I told them you’d take it like this.’

‘It you think I’m going to let six people risk their lives-!’ he spluttered furiously. 

It was so predictable. Ron even had his line prepared - he’d turned to Hermione just yesterday when he’d thought it up, and promised her that he would end up using it within ten minutes of seeing him. ‘Because it’s the first time for all of us,’ he said dryly. 

‘This is different, pretending to be me-’ Harry said desperately, looking wildly around at them all. 

‘Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,’ said Fred cheerfully. Hermione got the distinct impression he had prepared some witty lines too. ‘Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.’

Harry did not smile - he had that stubborn, resentful expression she and Ron knew so painfully well. ‘You can’t do it if I don’t cooperate,’ he said defiantly. Hermione saw Lupin’s mouth twitch in amusement. ‘You need me to give you some hair.’ 

‘Well, that’s that plan scuppered,’ said George heavily. ‘Obviously there’s no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.’ 

‘Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who’s not allowed to use magic; we’ve got no chance,’ added Fred, who Hermione suspected was rather keen to have the fun of enacting their plan to tackle him to the floor and let Tonks cut a few of his hairs. 

‘If it has to come to force, then it will,’ Moody warned Harry with a growl. ‘Everyone here’s overage, Potter, and they’re all prepared to take the risk.’ Harry continued to glare furiously at him - Tonks leaned slightly and whispered something into her husband’s ear. Lupin pressed his lips together and turned his face away, clearly holding back laughter. 

‘Let’s have no more arguments. Time’s wearing on. I want a few of your hairs, boy, now,’ ordered Moody.

‘But this is mad!’ exclaimed Harry. ‘There’s no need-’

Moody’s snarl was fierce and intense, Harry listening sullenly. ‘-Even You-Know-Who can’t split himself into seven!’ Moody finished eventually. 

Harry’s eyes flicked briefly to Hermione and Ron - they all swiftly looked away from one another to resist smirking. 

‘So, Potter - some of your hair, if you please.’ There was more resentful silence from Harry, until Moody barked impatiently again. ‘Now!’ 

With one last pleading look over to Ron, Harry adopted an expression of miserable defeat, raised a hand, and yanked a chunk of hair from his head harder than Hermione thought was necessary. 

‘Good,’ said Moody, pulling the stopper from the flask as he hobbled forward. ‘Straight in here, if you please.’ 

She expected the muddy potion to turn another colour, of course, but she expected, as had been the case the previous time she had seen it, that the colour would be something equally unappealing looking. She was aware that the colour was linked to the essence of the person, but hadn’t really considered what colour Harry’s essence might be. Perhaps she had expected red, or green, or something else that wasn’t insulting but hardly something you would want to consume But as the potion frothed and bubbled, the swampy brown turned a clear, bright gold. 

‘Ooh!’ she exclaimed, with great interest and surprise. ‘You look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry!’ 

Ron’s head snapped towards her, eyebrows raised high, as Fred and George sniggered, and Harry looked distinctly awkward. ‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ she said, trying very hard to sound casual. ‘Goyle’s potion looked like bogies.’

Thankfully, Ron’s expression looked amused rather than hurt, and as Moody called for the fake Potters to line up, she stepped forward with him, lining up by the shining kitchen sink. In the windowsill was a photograph of the Dursely family on a beach that was certainly not in the UK - Hermione briefly wondered where Harry had been before she turned on the spot to face Moody, stumping towards them and snarling at Mundungus, who was having to be forcibly dropped into the line. 

‘-Aiming to capture Potter, not kill him. Dumbledore always said You-Know-Who would want to finish Potter in person. It’ll be the protectors who have got the most to worry about, the Death Eaters’ll want to kill them.’

Hermione was well aware of the dangers; Ron had tried to persuade her not to do this enough times that she had thought very thoroughly about it, after all. But there was something about them all standing in a line there, separated from the protectors, that made an odd thought pop into her head. This might be the last time I see some of you.

She was handed the potion in what seemed like a slightly larger than average shot glass. She looked down into it - the potion shimmered and sparkled gold.

‘Altogether then,’ announced Moody.

She drank. It was revolting, certainly, but beneath the foulness of the potion there was a woody, smoky sort of flavour, far different to the sourness she had tasted when she had unwittingly turned into Pansy’s cat. She could feel her skin hot and bubbling, paling slightly, her scalp prickled as her hair seemed to be pulled into it, her bones ached and burned as she felt herself growing, her chest broadening. Everything went blurry, her jaw seemed to give a slight snap as it shifted, even her nose burned like she had snorted up pepper as it lengthened, her mid-back and shoulders suddenly ached. 

She was left, gasping and panting, though her back still ached and the world still remained as though she were viewing it underwater - blurry and lacking detail. She blinked and squinted as she heard Fred and George cracking jokes and Fleur whining - she looked over at Ron and was disconcerted, though she really shouldn’t have been, to see Harry standing beside her with Ron’s expression. 

Moody kicked the sacks towards them, grumpily explaining what was in them, and Hermione stepped tentatively towards them, squinting at the blurry shapes, feeling rather unsteady in this new, taller body. 

They all started pulling off their clothes - beside her, she heard Ron mutter about Ginny and tattoos, but she was reaching straight for the glasses, feeling uncommonly vulnerable, even a little scared, at how little she could see. ‘Harry, your eyesight really is awful,’ she told him, and she put on the glasses with relief. 

Finally, the world came back into focus, even if it felt strange to have something on her face. She could immediately see Kingsley and Tonks openly smirking, Lupin politely looking away, and Harry staring moodily at the floor, his face crimson. 

She pulled off her top, and unbuttoned her jeans, which were now extremely tight. It wasn’t as though she were deliberately perving, or anything, but there was something very interesting about suddenly being in a male body, anatomically speaking. It was quite toned on the stomach, maybe because of Quidditch, and the hip bones were sharper and narrower than hers - it seemed to hold itself differently, the shoulders and mid-back still aching, the chest broader. As she pulled up a new pair of jeans, her hand, unaccustomed to this new body, brushed up against something. What was-? Oh. 

It occurred to her that this was specifically Harry’s body. 

She even blushed differently in his body - the heat did not spread from her chest and blossom onto the rounds of her cheeks, but crept along her cheekbones. 

‘Can you pass me-?’ she asked one of the Harrys, gesturing to the pile of trainers, and her voice came out deeper. 

Finally, she was dressed, through she kept pushing at her glasses, even though they didn’t need readjusting, so unused to having something on her face. Moody was still growling at Mundungus and running through the plan, but Hermione kept looking down at her strange new hands, now scarred with shining writing, the skin rougher and the nails shorter. 

‘Who are you?’ whispered the Harry next to her. 

‘Hermione.’ 

The Harry nodded, and from his expression she knew it was Ron. ‘Thought so. This is weird.’ He grimaced, and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘He needs to sort his posture out.’ 

‘Oh, thank God, I was worried it had gone wrong, my shoulders are killing me too-

‘Hey,’ hissed a Harry, with a grin that surely meant he was one of the twins. ‘Chosen One isn’t as legendary as me, I’d say.’ 

‘What is wrong with you?’ Harry-Ron said back disapprovingly, but then he glanced over at the real Harry, then looked down and pulled at his waistband. 

‘Ron!’ she hissed, but the Harry-Ron simply grinned disconcertingly at her. 

‘What?’ he shrugged. ‘We’re only teasing, there’s nothing for him to be ashamed about.’ 

‘Lucky Ginny,’ she said coolly. 

That shut them up. ‘You’ve always got to ruin the fun, Hermione,’ said the twin-Harry. 

At last they were heading back into the dark garden, all of them with some luggage and a fake owl. 

‘Hermione?’ Kingsley called, glancing over the Harrys. 

‘Here!’ she said, raising her hand and hurrying forward. He led her to an empty patch of the garden, and then seemed to clip the trunk into the mid-air. She supposed the Thestral must have a harness. 

‘Here?’ she said nervously, feeling the solid lump of nothing. 

‘Yes, here - put your foot here, and then swing the other leg - that’s right.’ 

Harry’s legs were longer than hers so mounting the Thestral came as something of a confusing surprise, being pushed into the air higher than she expected as he straightened up and hesitantly sat on apparently nothing. 

‘Very good,’ said Kingsley, kindly. ‘All, a bit weird for you, eh?’

‘Just a tad,’ she remarked. She looked around the garden as Kinglley got onto the Thestral too, this time behind her. The real Harry, still looking rather embarrassed, was awkwardly lowering himself into the side car of the gleaming motorbike Hagrid had brought with him, and Ron was clambering onto thin air too, with Tonks. 

She looked back at the house, the windows dark and cold looking. When she had left her home, she’d wandered around it for at least half and hour, pulling her fingertips along the walls and window sills, saying goodbye. But of course she knew it had never been like that for Harry. 

The air was suddenly filled with the rumbling growls from the motorbike, the smell of petrol everywhere, and just above it was Moody’s barking voice. ‘Good luck everyone! See you all in about an hour at the Burrow. On the count of three. One… Two… THREE!’ 

Hermione felt herself heaved forwards a few metres, rocking slightly as the Thestral galloped - without Kingsley in front of her she seized at the air instinctively, finding her fingers grasping around something that felt like the coarse hair of a mane, though of course she could see nothing. With and unpleasant lurch and a deep thwump of wings, they were launched back into the night air. 

She could feel the cool wind on her scalp - she had so much less hair now - and they climbed higher and higher, Kingsley still behind her. She glanced down dizzily at the ground, the headlights of the cars tiny pinpricks moving softly along, the sprawling newbuild estates of Little Whinging shrinking. 

The rumbling of the motorbike started to soften as Hagrid and Harry drifted further away, but before she could acknowledge this new quiet, they were suddenly surrounded, on all sides, by dark figures on brooms. 

Her heart plummeted, and Kingsely suddenly leant forward, jerking on a rein she couldn’t see. ‘LOOK OUT!’ he roared at the others, but there was no need - all around her were screams and yells. 

She grabbed for her wand, her fingers trembling but thankfully she didn’t drop it. Though she was so terrified to be holding onto the invisible, lurching beast that she could barely move her head to see what was going on. Kingsley was roaring spells behind her, the Thestral banked to the right, people were flitting past so quickly she could barely register what was going on, the air was thick with screams and yells and flashes of green. 

She was screaming too, she realised, sheer panic taking over as she saw a shadowy figure plummeting to earth, and the Thestral was flying, even quicker now. Someone was swooping towards them and she tried to use the impedimenta jinx on them, but she missed widely, so disorientated by the unsteady movements of the Thestral and the confusion of the mid-air battle. Kingsley, however, did not miss, and his stunning spell sent the Death Eater spiralling to the ground. 

She gave a choked gasp, still leaning forward over where she supposed the Thestral’s neck was, clinging onto nothing for dear life. 

‘No!’ she heard Kingsley shout, and she turned to look to the left, her face freezing in feat. 

A man was flying without a broom, his robes rippling, his body rising before them like some demonic force. His skin was deathly pale, his eyes shining red even in the darkness, misshapen like a snake, contorted with a furious rage, piercing Hermione with a hungry glare. He was stretching out a grasping hand, his fingers long, white and thin, like bones, but the Thestral jerked away. 

Hermione was screaming louder than ever, her arms flung around the Thestrals neck as they tumbled, over and over, seeing nothing but a mess of the sky, and the terrifying pale face, and Kingsley’s outstretched arm as he yelled curses, and the ripple of Voldemort’s cloak. 

Until suddenly he was shooting upwards and away again, leaving Hermione and Kingsley gasping, still rocking with those rhythmic lurches from the winged horse.

‘He’s gone,’ spluttered Hermione. 

‘He must know you’re not Harry,’ Kingsley called in her ear. The Thestral continued to fly on. 

‘We should go back-’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We stick to the plan.’ 

‘The plan hasn’t worked!’ she cried desperately trying to turn and look back. She couldn’t see or hear anyone, but the clouds behind her lit up with colour as though crackling with lightning - blues and reds and, most horrifyingly, greens. 

‘It has,’ Kingsley told her. ‘We confused them. He came after you before Harry.’ 

She let out another shuddering gasp, and turned her head forwards again. Lord Voldemort had probably guessed she wasn’t the real Harry because the real Harry wouldn’t tremble like this, she thought miserably. The expression on her face was probably not one Harry ever had. 

She gripped the invisible creature hard as they flew on, the wind whipping at her face. She was blinking back tears - she hadn’t seen if Ron and Tonks had flown away from the skirmish, she hadn’t seen if any of those green flashes had hit targets, she couldn’t be sure that those bodies falling, falling, falling were the right ones. 

On and on they flew, Hermione still taking deep, gulping breaths of the cold night air, until they were spiralling into a descent once again, over a city, landing with a steady thump in a garden by a looming town house. Kingsley jumped down and then helped her - she realised she was still shaking. 

‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘But try and keep your voice down, I only have the top flat - don’t want the muggles looking out of their windows.’

‘Where are we?’ she asked him. 

‘My place. Bristol.’ He spent a few moments stroking the air; Hermione heard the Thestral snort as he patted it. ‘This way,’ he said at last, and then he led her up steep, stone steps, flanked by brick walls, up out of the garden and towards the house. 

I just saw Voldemort, she thought, as Kingsley turned a key in a large front door. He was metres away from me. 

They entered a hallway, a little shabby but bright and clean - she could see a door with a brass ‘A’ on it, but they walked past it and up the wide stairs. Her mind was still racing with the image of that cold, pale face, the vicious snarl of it. Somehow, despite all the times Harry had described him, it had come as such a shock to see someone so inhuman looking, so ravaged by the dark magic he had inflicted on himself. 

Finally, when they had climbed up two flights of stairs, they reached flat C, and Kingsley let them in. The ceilings were high and the hardwood floors were dark and glossy. Hermione’s footsteps echoed as Kingsley ushered her in and sat her down on a sofa. 

‘We have a slight wait before the portkey,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you a drink.’ 

‘T-thank you,’ she said, hardly believing that she was sitting on a soft leather sofa, having been screaming and spinning through the air not half an hour ago. She glanced around the room and jumped as she caught sight of Harry’s terrified, pale face, before realising she was looking into a mirror. 

Soon a cup of tea was being pressed into her hands, and Kingsley was putting a bent clothes hanger onto the coffee table. ‘The others,’ she said, shakily. ‘D’you… D’you think they’re all right?’ 

‘We’ll find out when we get to the Burrow,’ he said. She wanted him to add, ‘I’m sure everyone’s OK,’ but he simply sat on the sofa opposite rubbing his jaw and glancing at the clock. 

She sipped on her tea, the warmth of it calming her slightly. ‘I’ve never seen him before,’ she blurted out. 

‘The first time’s always a shock,’ Kingsley said quietly. ‘You did well.’ 

‘I didn’t, I completely lost my head-’

‘You had enough sense to hold on tight and not disapparate away,’ he said firmly. He frowned and rubbed hard at his eyes. ‘I don’t understand why he left.’ 

‘You said he must have known I wasn’t Harry.’ 

‘Yes, but how? He didn’t get close enough to check properly.’

‘It was probably my expression,’ she said unhappily. ‘He’s seen Harry enough times.’ 

Kingsley shook his head. ‘No, not enough - you have to care about someone to notice things like that. Something happened, someone called him away.’ 

Her heart crumpled, and she wished, fiercely, that they had paired Harry with someone who was better at magic than Hagrid. They sat in silence for a few moments, her heartbeat slowing to a more natural pace, the tea warming her hands. ‘They knew we would be there,’ she said at last.

‘Yes,’ said Kingsley darkly. ‘We were betrayed. Someone has sold out the Potters once again.’ 

She closed her eyes and swallowed. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the reflection of Harry in the mirror changing, the face softening, the hair growing.

‘Nearly time,’ said Kingsley abruptly. ‘Hold onto this.’ He grasped one end of the coat hanger and held it out to her. She put down her half-finished cup of tea and took the other end. His eyes met hers. ‘It will be all right,’ he said soothingly. ‘Whatever comes next.’ 

She didn’t believe him, but she nodded.


End file.
